Then – August 13, 2011
Now – September 9, 2011
Archive for the ‘Parenting’ Category
For Jana
Monday, September 5th, 2011This is a post specifically for Ben’s cousin Jana to see specifics of Simo’s development in crawling and walking. Let us know what you think Jana!
Simo attempting to pull up. It is almost like he can’t get his right leg to move in the right direction, like it is stuck or something. Is this normal developmentally or is there something we can work on to strengthen this?
Scooting along the floor, again struggling with his legs doing the right thing. The right one stays tucked again and he can’t seem to get it in the correct positioning for crawling.
In the standing position after I have helped him up. Notice how his right leg turns out. If we try to walk holding both his hands (with us behind him), both his feet do this. But when just standing there it is only his right leg.
Jana – let us know what you think and if you want feel free to pass on to your friends who deal specifically with Pediatrics. Thanks for the help and suggestions!
This Week’s Happenings 8/22-8/28
Sunday, August 28th, 2011The kids are all getting along well for the most part. The other day I walked in to see the three of them playing on Mikayla’s bed (which at the moment happens to be a mattress on the floor in our room) with her baby dolls and special pig from her friend Lylah (which she refers to as present). It was so precious. They do have their occasional squabbles as any "siblings" would. Nosipho is quick to grab things from her brother and then crawl off leaving him quite devastated. Mikayla has done her far share of "picking" at the twins as well.
Speaking of Mikayla, she has gotten very good at taking messages to people around our house. Occasionally I will need to tell Ben something or borrow something from the sisters and so I will either tell Mikayla or write a note and send her to the office or house to relay the message. She will march right along (usually in her rain boots because they are her shoes of choice) and walk up to the door and say "I’m here"! Eventually she makes it back to the house very proud of herself. Little Miss Independent!
We have become a family addicted to popcorn. We have it several times a week! Ben is perfecting his popcorn varieties. He has made traditional popcorn, a spicy buttery mix, a kettle corn and a spicy kettle corn so far. He even joked the other night about making a Popcorn book with recipes for all kinds of different homemade popcorns. I told him to go for it! Of course, there is no exact measurements when he is making it so it might be hard to complete.
Ben was gone for three days this week and we all survived! He worked long days working on a grant and I hung out with the kids back at home. Another volunteer, Katie, was around on Tuesday and Thursday so she helped out when she could. Wednesday I was on my own for the whole day and besides one little incident we all did great. The twins did not nap good on Wednesday and when I walked in to finally get them out of the bed I saw why. Somehow Simo’s diaper had come off (I am thinking Nosipho had something to do with it since it was laying right next to her) and he had pooped. He managed to get poop all over him, the blankets and the crib. Miraculously Nosipho we clean as a whistle. Needless to say we took baths early and due to the lack of naps we had an early bedtime. We started letting them cry it out about a week ago and it is working awesome. Now they only cry for a minute or two and then are sound asleep. I hope this trend continues for them at the hostel because I know that is one thing they struggled with there.
When Ben got home he had two surprises for us, one for me and one for Mikayla. Mikayla received her first Swaziland mail, which was actually our first mail at all. She got a special collage picture from her dear friend Lylah back home (thanks again guys). She looks at it often and had even started showing Lylah around the house/yard. We were outside the other day and she grabbed Lylah’s hand and started to walk her around and show her the mango trees, telling her all about them. So sweet! Just for reference the mail only took about two weeks to arrive. I am not sure on packages though. My special surprise was an electric mixer! Woo hoo. I think I jumped and squealed when I saw it in Ben’s bag. Who knew one could get so excited for a mixer. But I will tell you that it will make my baking much easier and my arm won’t be as tired from stirring! It is no Kitchen Aid, but it will work perfectly!
Twin update – Nosipho is well on her way to walking. She will now stand for minutes at a time without holding onto anything. She hasn’t braved that first step yet, but is very close. Simo is still struggling to get his body to maneuver in the right direction. When you try to put him in the crawling position his legs won’t cooperate, almost like there is something wrong. He has an appointment on Tuesday to see a physical therapist in town. Hopefully nothing is wrong and the PT can at least give us some exercises to do to strengthen his leg muscles. They are chatting up a storm and are making clear sounds like "da" and "ma". They aren’t saying any real words yet, but do love to scream and bang pots from Mikayla’s kitchen. It can get really loud in our house sometimes with the banging and screaming bouncing off the concrete walls and tile floors!
I made a delicious made from scratch chocolate cake and icing this week. I am thinking that I am going to start gaining weight with all the goodies I am making! I plan on trying some sort of bread this week. Any suggestions? I also made some chicken and dumplings that turned out pretty good. I had to use Mikayla’s play rolling pin from Ikea to roll out the dough which was interesting! Guess I need to locate a rolling pin, huh?
On Sunday I flooded the house, literally! I was trying to multi-task and wash clothes while mopping the floor. The way the washing machine is set up is that it drains into the basin sitting next to it. I completely forget this when I filled the basin up with water and cleaner to mop the floor. While mopping the kitchen I heard a large splashing sound and immediately ran into the laundry room to fin water quickly spilling out of the basin. We had water everywhere and it took us a bit of time to get straightened out. The kids then proceeded to break two bowls while playing. Needless to say, Sunday was a bit of a destructive day for the Kickert household.
Nosipho likes to crawl right up to you when you get the camera out.
Playing with babies on Mikayla’s bed.
This Week’s Happenings 8/14-8/21
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011The twins went to the hospital on Wednesday for a check up so they were gone most of the day. Mikayla and I took full advantage of it just being the two of us. We cleaned, watched a movie and had some fun Mommy/daughter time. She only complained about the twins not being here first thing in the morning! We ended up having company over for dinner on Wednesday night (Ben was actually in town trying to take care of some things) and the kids all went to bed late. That meant they all woke up early on Thursday and for some reason didn’t take good naps. Needless to say with all the crankiness everyone had early bedtimes!
I made some really delicious banana bread courtesy of a recipe from my good friend Jennifer. It was delicious and enjoyed by many in the office and hostel. The recipe is below. That was really the only thing I baked this week because we ran out of butter and it isn’t like there is a grocery store on every corner here!!
The twins are making a lot of progress this week. Nosipho is crawling efficiently and moving all over the place. She has gone from crawling while dragging one foot behind to crawling the right way. She is also pulling up on stuff and cruising along the furniture like a mad woman! She is smiling, laughing and jabbering constantly. Simo is also becoming very good at mimicking you. We even caught her the other day soothing her brother when he was upset by patting him on the back like we do. She has also picked up a few signs along the way. She now knows eat, more and milk. Simo is making progress in his own little way. He is now pushing up (with a little help) while holding on to your hands into a standing position. This is something that a week ago (and even a few days ago) he refused to do and would hold his legs up so you couldn’t make him stand. He is laughing and smiling and jabbering along as well. He will occasionally sign for eat and more. He is clapping and is still perfectly content to just sit still! And of course they are both eating like champs. They eat twice as much food as Mikayla (and poop three or four times as much)! It is amazing the progress they have made in a week, I can’t wait to see where they are at the end of the month.
We are getting into a pretty good groove of being a family of five. Bath time is still a little tricky because everyone wants to be in the bathroom at the same time and if you saw Ben’s video, it really isn’t that big of a space. We have started letting the twins "cry it out" at night and that is going well. It takes a little bit longer for them to settle down than it does for Mikayla, but they are getting much better at putting themselves to sleep.
I also found out that Ben will be in Manzini (the town about 1.5 hours away) for three days next week for a meeting. I will get a real taste of what it is like to be a mommy of three toddlers then!
I almost forgot, one of the volunteers here talked me into going for a run with her last weekend
Cookie time! Or as the Swazi’s would say Biscuit time!
Beautiful Nosipho
My baby girl and I
Banana Bread Recipe
Prep time: 5 minutes
- Cook time: 1 hour
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
Method
No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.
Mango Tree Pictures
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011Tree pictures are an Adkins family tradition. I wanted to carry that tradition with us to Africa and the mango trees are just perfect! Here are all three kids in the mango trees.
First up Mikayla who refuses to look directly at the camera when taking pictures these days.
[NOTE: The last two pictures are linked to larger versions that can be downloaded and saved/printed.]
Next Nosipho.
And last, but not least Simo.
This Week’s Happenings 8/8-8/13
Saturday, August 13th, 20118/8 – I went to my first meeting with Mikayla this week. It was for the “aunties” on staff in child care. It was nice to meet them each and start really learning names. Mikayla did wonderfully. She immediately jumped right in and played with the handful of kids who were not at school today. She grabbed their hands and walked over to the slide to play. She only came over and interrupted the meeting a couple of times and even that was to tell me something really quick and then ran back over to her friends. She is starting to get the hang of telling them what she wants and doesn’t want. She even marched into the kitchen at the hostile today to ask for a piece of bread like the other kids had.
8/12 – The twins moved in today (Friday). I actually managed to get all three kids to sleep at the same time! Ben took an extra long lunch so he was around to help me out. Wouldn’t it be amazing if this trend continued?? The boys name is Simo (See-mo) and the girls is Nosipho (No-see-po). They are precious but so quiet and super still. Maybe Mikayla’s activeness will rub off a little and they will start moving and talking during their stay.
They slept really well their first night and it only took about 20 or 30 minutes to get them both drifted off. We didn’t rock or anything just laid them in their crib and rubbed Nosipho’s belly for a few minutes. Simo fell right to sleep. They look much better than they did this time last week. They are eating really well and gaining personality. Nosipho is now responding to her name and both babies are waving goodbye. Simo even muttered and utterance that sounded like goodbye when people were leaving the house last night. They are semi-feeding themselves independently. Nosipho is crawling, she drags one leg behind her and crawls up on the other. She will walk if you hold her hands, but her legs are still not very strong. Simo hates standing up and will cry if you try to make him.
The electricity went out a few nights ago for a couple of hours so we got to cook and eat dinner by candlelight. Mikayla has been asking to eat with the candles since then. I am not sure she understands that losing electricity isn’t a good thing!
The plan is for me to drive into town on my own on Saturday to check email while Ben hangs out with the kids. I am nervous about doing it on my own, but also excited about getting away from home for a few hours. Ben heads into town at least once a week for work and I haven’t been away for over two weeks! (Update – made it into town okay!)
Just munching on some sugar cane we found on the side of the road!
I put Mikayla’s hair in pigtail braids the other day. This isn’t a very good picture, but isn’t she just too cute!
Simo on the left and Nosipho on the right!
This Week’s Happenings 7/31-8/7
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011I have decided to try and give a week’s update at some point during the week. No promises for how it will go or what day it will be posted on, but I thought I would give it a shot! Because Internet is really slow here, the posts will probably only include a few pictures. My last two posts had quite a few pictures and took some time to upload. We had free Internet at the time so it wasn’t a big deal, but most of the time that won’t be the case!
If you know me at all you know I have a slight fear of ants. I know they won’t hurt me, but something about the thought of thousands of ants crawling all over me and my house freaks me out. In BG we would at the start of each summer have an ant infestation at our house. They would invade our kitchen and really freak me out. I had Ant killer on hand to immediately douse them and kill them. Of course that is not what you are supposed to do, but I didn’t care. I think the ants followed us to Swaziland, but are way worse. If you leave just one crumb on the the counter they find it within seconds. This means dishes have to be washed and counters wiped down quickly after a meal. Something I am not a fan of or used to doing so quickly. We are getting into a groove though and I am not finding it so hard to do here. Maybe because we don’t have so many distractions. We did find a bug killer called Doom here to help take care of the problem if it arises. Speaking of ants, Mikayla has taken to liking bugs. She will be walking along and discover them easily on the ground. She then wants to get down and examine them closely. Such a curious girl. I guess I will have to get over my lack of enjoyment for bugs so I can explore them with her!
Mikayla’s imagination is really starting to soar. She can come up with something to do on a whim and is able to create the most clever activity from things such as a stick. For example, on a walk the other day Mikayla found a stick. She proceeded to tell me the stick was a dog and its name was Shiloh. “Shiloh” came with us on the rest of our walk and even went home with us. She would periodically stop to pet the stick dog and tell hit good job. It was hilarious. “Shiloh” now resides on our front porch next to our digging sticks.
I made yeast rolls this week. They were similar to Sister Shubert, but not quite at the same level. Tasty though and not that hard. The only time consuming thing was letting them rise, twice! They would have been even easier to make had I had an electric mixer. All I have is a mixer you stir by hand…the old fashion kind!! I have a feeling that my baking is going to really improve here and me and Betty Crocker are going to become best friends!!
It is winter here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it gets cold. Today for example I am sitting on the porch at 1:30pm and wearing a sleeveless sundress and am perfectly comfortable. It starts out chilly in the morning and gets chilly at night, but the middle of the day is warm. This is going to be hard to get used to! How am I supposed to teach Mikayla about seasons??
Random Mikayla moment this week. She has gotten to where she wants to “talk about something”. So one day I said lets talk about itchy eyes, and asked her what we could do to help itchy eyes. She immediately looked at me and said, “ICHIBAN”. For those of you in the BG area, you know what that means. I think our girl has sushi on the brain!!
As most of you may know, Mikayla is a bit of a talker. Today her talking got the best of her. She got kicked out of Sunday School and church both in the same day. Not really, but kind of. In Sunday school the other kids were so enthralled with Mikayla that they were having a hard time focusing on the teacher. After about twenty minutes of no focus she asked us if we would please go on to church. I knew this was a bad idea because she can’t keep quiet!! So we stalled for a bit outside until it was time for all the kids to go into church and give offering. She did great with this and walked up to the front to put her two coins in the bowl. We then sat down and she lasted for a total of one minute before jabbering again and we had to get up and leave. Because of the acoustics of the church you can hear every little sound so everyone could hear what she was saying and distracting the whole congregation. We are going to keep trying, but until she figures out when to talk and when to not we may not be making it very long in church. And until the kids get used to Mikayla, we may not last long in Sunday School either!! Oh my!!
That is all for now folks. Be sure to read my other post for some very exciting news!!
As We Danced
Saturday, July 30th, 2011**Post originally written on Tuesday, July 26, 2011, but published later.
Today Mikayla and I had a little danced party. We turned on one of my all time favorite children’s musicians, Dr. Jean, and began to dance and sing. As we sung I couldn’t help but think about our dear friends Lara and Lylah back in the states. Thinking that they may too be dancing today during their learning time – times during the day to “teach” Lylah basics of learning. Here are some snapshots of the four of us the day before we set out on our adventure.
The four of us!
The girls
The adults
I am hoping to start up my own “Toddler School” with Mikayla very soon. I just need to get my hands on a few essentials like construction paper and glue first! I decided today that our first letter will be M for Mikayla. We will do something with monkeys, myself, maps and who knows what else I come up with. We will also focus on the numbers 1-5 in recognition and value, playing some very basic number games. Nothing too structured, but she is so much like a sponge right now I hate to pass up the opportunity to teach her these basics! From the letter M I think we will move on to A and start from the beginning. I am not sure how long we will “study” each letter, maybe a week, maybe more or maybe less. I am just going to have some activities in mind and go from there.
Mikayla has been asking about her kitchen since we got here, so yesterday I took out an empty laundry basket and made her a “stove”. Then gathered her food and kitchenware to make her a makeshift kitchen. I am hoping to get my hands on some cardboard boxes soon to make a real kitchen, but for now she seems pretty content with what she has!
The first couple of nights we were here we ate pizza we had picked up in town and chicken and potato salad the sisters had arranged for us to have waiting for us when we arrived. Sunday we ventured into town for the first time to pick up the essentials from the grocery store. The whole time my head was spinning with conversions and trying to figure out the various ingredients. After about an hour or so of this my head was spinning and I was ready to hit the road back home. After a slight panic when I thought our fridge was broken (turns out the switch on the back had been turned off) and putting our groceries away I set out to make our first official dinner in our new home. We had skillet pork chops with sautéed mushrooms and onions, steamed broccoli and something similar to macaroni and cheese. I found a powdered cheese sauce at the store that I mixed with noodles. It definitely wasn’t homemade mac and cheese, but it was edible! It wasn’t a bad meal and similar to something we would have in the states.
After putting Mikayla to bed I decided to relieve some stress and try my hand at making chocolate chip cookies. This was a challenge! First of all, the oven is a gas oven and has no markings to indicate how warm it was. We had to use our best judgment and finally mastered it after a few batches. Second of all, the ingredients were slightly different than what I was used to in the states. I only had baking powder, not soda like I am used to. I also had a bar of milk chocolate instead of chips (which is similar to how I used to make them with my bars of fair trade chocolate). The brown sugar was packed, but granules like in white sugar. There was no all purpose flour at the store, only cake flour, bread flour, and self-rising flour. I went with cake flour (since I like cakey cookies). When we started baking the cookies they were burning on the bottom, but raw on top. After some modifications to the temperature of the oven and sliding the cookie sheet on top of a broiler pan (thanks hubby for the awesome idea and help), we were able to come up with perfect cookies! They took longer to bake than usual, but we are figuring things out. Everyone in the office liked them and we even had some westerners over for dinner last night and they ate them up! So I suppose they tasted okay. Sorry, but I didn’t think to snap pictures of any of the good ones and only have the extra crisp ones left.
I almost forgot, last night it started raining and has pretty much rained non-stop the whole day. The temperature has dropped significantly. All of you suffering with the heat in the states should be jealous because today I wore my long pants, sweatshirt, wool socks and was still cold! I know I will be jealous of you guys when come December we are burning up and you have all the cold, but for now I will let the jealousy stay on your side!
I will end this long post with a picture of a frog Ben spotted today. It is white in color with small spots. He was just hanging out on our windowsill after lunch.
Two Year Pictures
Saturday, July 30th, 2011Before we left my sister-in-law, Sarah, came down to BG with my brother for the day to hang out and snap some very important two year pictures of Mikayla. She did such an amazing job! I want to post all of the pictures, but thought some of you might like to just see the highlights. If you want to see the whole album, you can view it here.
Mikayla – Then and Now
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
Mikayla as an infant
Mikayla at a year
Mikayla at two years
